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The Tampa Tribune , September 11, 2007

Amendment Hopes To Leave Decisions In The Hands Of Voters



By Karen Branch-Brioso


TAMPA - The proposed amendment to Florida's constitution called Hometown Democracy is a few hundred thousand petitions short of making it to the 2008 ballot.

Yet debate is already raging over the plan to give voters – and not city or county commissioners – the last word on local growth plans. Early Tuesday, about 250 builders, land-use lawyers, planners and media types paid $39 a plate for the Tampa Bay Business Journal's breakfast face-off on the issue at Pepin Hospitality Centre.

The opponents were a powerful group: Adam Babington, the Florida Chamber of Commerce's director of coalitions and initiatives; former state Department of Community Affairs Secretary Linda Loomis Shelley – now a Tallahassee-based partner with Fowler White Boggs Banker; and former state Rep. Bob Henriquez, now with the Atwell-Hicks land development consulting firm.

Hometown Democracy founder Lesley Blackner wasn't there.

The lawyer said she initially had a court date that conflicted with the debate – but also skipped it for other reasons: "I need to talk to voters. Not wealthy developers. I don't see the point of going to meetings where I'm not going to persuade any of the audience."

Instead, the proponents were John Hedrick, a lawyer who chairs the Florida Sierra Club's growth management/sprawl committee; Treasure Island lawyer Kenneth Weiss, who helped a group in St. Pete Beach push for local ordinances to give voters greater control over growth; and Mons Venus adult club owner Joe Redner, a likely 2008 county commission candidate who contributed $35,000 to Hometown Democracy.

Supporters say developers heavily influence local officials who now decide the fate of changes in a comprehensive plan — a government's long-term guide for growth. They want voters to have the final say.

"The right to vote. That's what this is about," said Weiss, noting state Department of Community Affairs Secretary Tom Pelham wrote a recent commentary in The Tampa Tribune calling Hometown Democracy "Draconian…extreme, impractical." that was circulated at the debate.

Weiss said when he pushed for St. Pete Beach's slow-growth measure, Pelham, then a lawyer with Fowler White Boggs Banker, argued against it.

"Why is the other side trying to keep you from voting?" Weiss said.

Amendment opponents say it converts an exceedingly complicated process into campaign sound bites. Shelley said it already takes as long as a year to secure a comprehensive plan change.

"Hometown Democracy is a bad idea, because it will add costs, time, confusion…to a very complicated process," said Shelley, saying elections would stymie positive changes to the process. "This will significantly undermine the process of any improvements we want to make in growth management."
Hedrick said the costs of fighting a plan change are prohibitive for regular citizens: "This will definitely level the playing field."

Babington said taxpayers would face enormous costs under Hometown Democracy – by forcing local governments to bring plan amendments before voters.

"Everyone in this room will pay for them…and taxes and fees will have to go up in response to that," Babington said.

The Florida Chamber of Commerce backs an alternative to Hometown Democracy. The petition by Floridians for Smarter Growth would allow voter approval of comprehensive plans as well. But it wouldn't be automatic. That petition calls for a vote on a plan change if 10 percent of a city or county's voters go to the elections office and sign a petition.

Redner scoffed at the alternative.

"It makes it an impossibility if people have to go down to the supervisor of elections," Redner said. "The problem is, we have trouble getting people to the polls."

Henriquez said that Hometown Democracy would undermine the concept of representative government where elected officials make decisions for those who vote them into office.
"It comes down to process…how our founders believed we should deal with big issues," Henriquez said. "We get overrun with too many things on the ballot as it is."

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